In general, I feel that my holidays were quite interesting. Since there was no CCA except for the first few weeks of holidays, I spent most of my time doing homework, practicing piano and Electone, going out or just doing leisure activities. Only this portion of my holidays was rather mundane. The last two weeks was fun and interesting because my cousin and I went to Taiwan with our parents.
Unlike the past two trips to Taiwan, the first few days of this trip was rainining. On board the plane, as we were high up in the atmosphere, the rain turned into ice as it came down, so we could hear the pieces of ice pounding on the aeroplane. Upon arrival in Taipei, we found that it was very cold. We immediately put on our jackets. Our driver cum tour guide for the trip picked us up from the airport and drove us to our hotel, Just Sleep hotel. Interesting and cosy-sounding name for a hotel, isn't it? Even the signs in the hotel room were interesting.
The toilet sign at Just Sleep
In addition, there was a 7-eleven shop right next to the hotel concierge. The 7-eleven shops in Taiwan are quite different from those we have back here. They sell nice brewed coffee using a coffee machine, hot soup which you can choose the ingredients you want, with either the original or the spicy (麻辣) soup base to choose from, a whole lot of delicious cup noodles and microwaveable food, as well as some drinks which we are not able to find here in Singapore.
After resting, we went for walk and dinner at Xi Men Ding which was a stone's throw from our hotel.
On the second day, we went to Yilan, which is famous for its Sanxing spring onion (三星葱). The food sold there are often made using this spring onion, including ice cream. The most famous delicacy there is the spring onion pastry（葱油饼).
Spring onion noodles (Smart noodles, anyone?)^^
Spring onion ice cream
We stayed in a small wooden house at an organic farm in Yilan. This was a unique experience which felt like staying in a chalet but much better and more fun. There were two levels, so my cousin, our mums and I slept upstairs on mattresses while the dads slept downstairs on nice beds. We also had fun throwing and catching things from upstairs and downstairs when we were too lazy to walk up and down the stairs. The most hilarious thing was, in my opinion, that everyone had to fight for that one toilet in our house.
The first day at Yilan was spent at the cultural village. There, we experienced the general culture of Taiwan, including their Chinese opera and the cultures of the different tribes. On the second day, we went out to a hot spring to experience cooking eggs, water chestnut and sweet corn in the hot and bubbling spring. The food was delicious! What was intriguing was that the eggs were cooked on the outside but the yolk was liquid. Even without seasoning, it was superb! The sweet corn was very sweet too. On that day, we also visited the Sanxing Spring Onion museum and a roadside art exhibition by Jimmy. We also made spring onion pastry ourselves when we were back at the farm. Due to our inexperience, the pastries were not very nice. They were not fluffy enough and tasted rather bland.
Hot spring egg
Hot Spring Sweet Corn
Spring Onion museum
Art exhibit
On the fourth day, we went to see the Shifen waterfall before going to Jiufen Old Street.
Shifen water fall
It was raining very, very heavily on that day. As the guesthouse that we were staying in for the night was located in a narrow alley, the van we were in was not allowed through, so we had to push our luggages through the super heavy rain. To make matters worse, there was no elevator so we had to haul 6 heavy luggages and many shopping bags up 5 floors using the stairs. This was one unpleasant experience! Thankfully, we had fun walking in Jiufen despite the rain. At the end of the day, we had to buy an extra pair of shoes because our shoes were soaked.
The next day, we headed to Yeliu Geo Park to see the Queen's head rock formation before heading to Danshui for shopping and to buy "iron" eggs (铁蛋).
Yeliu Geo Park
The following day, we went to the renown and scenic Yangmingshan National Park. It was freezing cold up there, at about 3 degrees Celsius. Even the water from the tap felt like Ice water.
Look at the temperature!
The next day, we went to the Leofoo Theme Park to play. We rode camels and horses there too.
Finally, we wrapped up our trip with 2 days of free and easy shopping and we flew back to Singapore on last day of the year, 31 Decmber 2013.
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